For Many Asian New Yorkers, Smoking Is Still a Way of Life

On a cool, damp afternoon in Flushing, Queens, Seung Jun stood outside on Main Street on Thursday, a smoker among his peers. He unsheathed a Parliament and took a long drag, as though he were taking in a breath of relief.

All around him, other Asian men engaged in the same ritual, on the sidewalks, in doorways and on bicycles. Here, in the heart of the city’s largest Asian community, smoking is still a way of life.

The city’s Asian population has been stubbornly resistant to the otherwise successful efforts by the Bloomberg administration to curb smoking among New Yorkers. Smoking rates among the city’s Asian communities have not budged since 2002 — most notably among Asian men, despite decreases in the habit among almost every other demographic, according to data from the city’s health department.

On Thursday, the department stepped up its appeals to Asian smokers, introducing graphic ads in Chinese for its annual campaign to distribute nicotine patches and gum, and offering Chinese speakers for those who call 311 to enroll in the program. The department will also seed the ethnic news media with translated versions of its antismoking campaign called “Pain,” which depicts excruciating smoking-related cancers.

“We looked at our data very carefully to understand who is still smoking in New York City,” said Jenna Mandel-Ricci, a deputy director at the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control. She added that the city’s Russian community, about a quarter of whom smoke, would be given the same kind of attention.

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The city’s antismoking efforts have largely failed with Asian immigrants.Credit
James Estrin/The New York Times

Part of the problem is rooted in homeland: Nearly 70 percent of men in both China and South Korea smoke, for example, according to the World Health Organization (for women in both countries the number is below 10 percent). In New York City, the numbers are far lower: about 17 percent of Asian men smoke, and under 5 percent of women, according to the health department.

But unlike most other demographic groups in the city, Asian men smoke at a rate that did not show a statistically significant drop from 2002 to 2010. Among blacks, for example, the rate fell to 12.5 percent from 20.8 percent. And among whites, it dropped to 15.6 percent from 23.8 percent.

Among Asians, there are “persistent cultural norms around smoking that the city’s policies and programs have not really penetrated,” said Dr. Donna Shelley, an associate professor at the New York University School of Medicine, who has studied smoking in the city’s Asian communities. For example, gifts of cigarettes at a holiday gathering, where other groups might give, say, a bottle of Malbec, are routine, Dr. Shelley found.

“It’s a largely accepted part of our culture,” says Grace Meng, a Queens assemblywoman who is Chinese-American and represents Flushing. She says she is shocked when people think nothing of lighting up over a business dinner.

While the trend is citywide, Flushing, with one of the highest concentrations of Asians in the five boroughs, seems to encapsulate the different dimensions of the problem.

On Thursday, Chinh Vu, 60, who moved here from Vietnam three decades ago, was feeding his pack-a-day habit with a fresh Dunhill cigarette outside of CJ Food Market on Main Street. All his peers smoke, he said, but not his children and grandchildren. “Over here they don’t smoke, they go to school, they learn something and they don’t smoke,” he said. “Good for them. It’s not good for me, but I can’t stop.”

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On Main Street in Flushing, Queens, Chinh Vu, 60, a pack-a-day smoker, said his children and grandchildren did not smoke. “Good for them,” Mr. Vu said. “It’s not good for me, but I can’t stop.”Credit
James Estrin/The New York Times

The problem is less prevalent among Asian women. In most Asian countries, less than 10 percent of women smoke, and even fewer smoke in New York. However, some researchers say that smoking among young Asian-American girls seems to be rising, as they seek to keep up with their peer group, who often view smoking as hip.

“I felt that we have failed in our educational process of teaching adults,” said State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, whose district encompasses Flushing. The key, she said, is teaching children of immigrants the dangers of smoking, so they take that information back home. “Their parents will pick up from the children,” she said.

But while children may adopt the typical New Yorker’s disdain for smoke, a culture of deference to elders that threads through many Asian groups is another potential roadblock, Dr. Shelley said. Correcting an older person’s behavior may be seen as disrespectful, not helpful.

Patrick Lee, 22, who is Chinese and smokes though his family disapproves, agreed. “I’m not going to tell my grandpa what to do,” he said. “He’s older than me so, if you want to smoke, go ahead and smoke.”

Mr. Lee’s friends keep each other supplied in cheap cigarettes, ordered in bulk from Taiwan or picked up in duty-free shops when they go back and forth to their home countries, he said. A block away, a smoker pulled out a bright red pack of Chunghwa cigarettes from China. One side it was emblazoned in Chinese, the other in English: “Quit smoking early is good for your health.”

As Mr. Jun, 22, a paralegal at a law firm in Flushing, tossed his butt to the curb, he offered another theory of why many in his densely populated community find cigarettes so hard to give up. “We struggle,” he said. “So we smoke.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 2, 2012, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: For Many Asian New Yorkers, Smoking Is Still a Way of Life. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe